FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for transmitting digital data over data lines between subscribers forming data sources and data sinks, which are disposed in a network having a ring structure, connecting a plurality of subscribers to one another and including network segments with a single data line respectively formed between two adjacent subscribers, whereby the data in the network are transferred in a format which prescribes a clocked sequence of individual bit groups of equal length, each of which contains at least one partial bit group forming a data channel, that can be assigned temporarily to two subscribers in the network for a data transmission. The data are transferred in a continuous data stream synchronized to a clock signal. The clock signal is generated by a single subscriber. All other subscribers synchronize themselves to that clock signal. Purely asynchronous data transfer processes are differentiated therefrom as package-oriented data transmission processes, for example ATM-processes.
Methods of that type are used wherever a plurality of electrical and electronic devices that are to exchange information with one another are interlinked through the use of data lines. In the audio field, for instance, the communication between interlinked data sources on one hand, such as CD players, radio receivers and cassette tape recorders, and the associated data sinks on the other hand, such as amplifier-speaker combinations, can be controlled by such a method.
In known methods of that type, the data channels which are available for the transmission are permanently allocated to the subscribers in the network. Therefore, for each subscriber, at least one data channel must be made available. Thus the number of possible subscribers in the network is limited, and the network must always be constructed for a maximum number of subscribers. In a ring-like network structure, as many data channels as the total number needed for data transmission between all of the subscribers must be made available between all of the subscribers. One disadvantage thereof is the very great expense for equipment and administration it requires.